This day in 1918 in The Record: March 5

Tuesday, March 5, 1918. The federal government is taking possession of three warehouses at the Fuller & Warren stove manufacturing facility in South Troy for wartime storage purposes, The Record reports.

Company president William Henry Warren confirms today that “the government had been negotiating for a portion of the plant for several weeks.” Upon receiving word from Washington D.C. that “a large number of cars loaded with ordnance materials were en route to Troy,” Warren “presumed it had decided to use it.”

The warehouses, comprising a quarter of the plant, each contain between 80,000 and 100,000 square feet of space. “It is believed the buildings will be filled with war materials within a few weeks,” our reporter writes.

Will the government take over more buildings if the warehouses fill too quickly? “We hope not,” Warren says, “Any further demands on our space would hamper our manufacturing and restrict our output.

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“Of course the government can seize the entire business if it wishes; but it hardly would do this unless it bought the property outright. A temporary seizure would damage our standing as a going concern irreparably.

“I do not know whether the government has any such plans, but the Fuller & Warren company has no desire to wind up its affairs; and this would be the inevitable result if the government sought much more space from us.”

Prohibition Camouflage

Rival committees in the state legislature are pushing different measures to prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages in New York State, but a Record editorial claims that only one of the committees is sincere.

Troy state senator George B. Wellington recently pressured the senate taxation and retrenchment committee to modify the language of its proposed prohibition referendum. Offered as an alternative to ratifying a federal constitutional amendment, the referendum “purposely is so worded that it can not possibly pass muster with the voters,” our editorial writer argues. Its provision barring the use of wine for sacramental purposes is widely seen as a “poison pill” included to guarantee that Catholic voters would reject the referendum.

“Prohibition is a vital issue,” our editors assert, “It is based upon the question of future efficiency in the nation. It should be settled on the basis of the wisdom of permitting the use of beverages in coming generations which in past generations have weakened the minds, enervated the bodies and ruined the judgment of millions of men.

“If these damages to the race exceed the social advantages of the exhilaration and the comfort intoxicants give to moderate users of them, prohibition should be accepted as part of the Constitutional law of the land.”